Bedfast patients often experience a drop-foot condition wherein the foot is extended and forms an obtuse angle with respect to the leg. If the condition is not rectified, the foot may become rigidly affixed in the extended position which will prevent the patient from walking when out of bed.
Patients suffering from spinal injuries often suffer from the drop-foot condition, and the feet are commonly subjected to spasms as well.
The splint of U.S. Pat. No. 3,976,059 is adapted to deal with the drop-foot condition wherein the inherent spring like characteristics of the splint material tend to draw the extended foot back towards its normal position. However, the use of such a splint to correct the drop-foot situation is extremely slow and there is no way to program the splint to deal with predetermined increments of foot extension.
Commonly, the extended foot is partially subjected to dorsiflexion wherein the foot is partially moved back towards its normal position. The foot is then encased in a rigid cast and left for a period of time whereupon the cast is then removed, additional dorsiflexion is applied, and a new cast is placed on the foot. This process is repeated with a plurality of subsequent casts whereupon the foot is returned to its normal angular position with respect to the leg.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a foot splint which can effectively deal with incremental corrections of drop-foot extension without the use of plaster casts.
A further object of this invention is to provide a foot splint which can be adjusted to incremental angular positions and locked in such positions to deal with any angular displacement of the foot being experienced by a given patient.
A still further object of this invention is to provide a foot splint which can be easily moved to and locked to a given position in the process of dealing with drop-foot conditions existing in bedfast patients.
These and other objectives will be apparent to those skilled in the art.